Systems and methods for inferential sharing of photos

ABSTRACT

Techniques for separating shareable images from non-shareable images. In various implementations, image metadata and feature analysis may be used to evaluate the “shareability” of a photograph associated with a particular user. In some implementations, single photos may be determined to be shareable. In another implementation, an event associated with multiple photos may be determined to be shareable. In some implementations, a photo may be determined to be shareable with a single recipient. In another implementation, a photo may be determined to be shareable with multiple recipients. In yet another implementation, these techniques may be assisted by supervised machine learning. In still yet another implementation, photos determined to be shareable may be suggested to a user for sharing, or automatically shared, per an opt-in feature.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation, and claims the benefit under 35U.S.C. §120, of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/137,812, filed 25Apr. 2016, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/454,644, filed 7 Aug. 2014, which claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C.§119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/863,331, filed 7Aug. 2013, of which the entire contents and substance are herebyincorporated by reference as if fully set forth below.

BACKGROUND

Countless photographs are taken every day. Many of these photos will beshared directly with friends, acquaintances, or family, or published ona website or blog. For example, one social media network reports receiptof hundreds of millions of photos per day from over a billion users.Selecting a photo to share and recipients to share the photo with can bea time consuming task. Accordingly, robust techniques for automaticallydetermining which photos a user may wish to share could result insubstantial time and productivity savings for a large segment of thepopulation.

However, current techniques for automatically determining a“shareability” of photos are insufficient. For example, someconventional techniques are limited to taking into account environmentalsignals, for example, a proximity of a sending and recipient user, whendetermining whether a photo should be shared with the second user. Thus,a timing and range for sharing photos may be unnecessarily limited by ageographic relationship of the participants at the time of photocapture.

SUMMARY

Some or all of the above deficiencies may be addressed by certainimplementations of the disclosed technology. Certain implementationsinclude techniques for separating shareable images from non-shareableimages. In some implementations, such techniques may be assisted bysupervised machine learning. Accordingly, implementations of thedisclosed technology may provide a generalized, high performancemechanism for identifying and suggesting shareable content from among acollection of media.

According to an example implementation, a method is provided. The methodmay include receiving a plurality of images associated with a first userof a social media network. Each respective image may have a timestamp.The method may further include defining a grouping of the plurality ofimages into a plurality of clusters. A first cluster of the plurality ofclusters may comprise (1) an initial image from the plurality of images(2) one or more other images from the plurality of images having atimestamp within a predetermined amount of time of at least one of atimestamp associated with the initial image and a timestamp associatedwith one of the other images in the first image cluster. The method mayyet further include determining based at least partially on a number ofimages in the first cluster, a likelihood that the first user will sharea first image in the first cluster. The method may also include,responsive to determining the likelihood exceeds a predeterminedthreshold, outputting for display, a prompt to the first user to sharethe first image on the social media network. Alternatively, the methodmay also include, responsive to determining the likelihood exceeds apredetermined threshold, automatically sharing the first image on thesocial media network.

According to another example implementation, a method is provided. Themethod may include receiving a plurality of images associated with afirst user of a social media network. Each respective image may have atimestamp. The method may further include defining a grouping of theplurality of images into a plurality of clusters. Each respectivecluster of the plurality of clusters may comprise (1) an initial imagefrom the plurality of images and (2) any other images from the pluralityof images having a timestamp within a predetermined amount of time of atimestamp associated with the initial image and or within thepredetermined amount of time of a timestamp associated with one of theother images in the respective cluster. The method may yet furtherinclude determining, for each respective image in a first image clusterof the plurality of image clusters, a likelihood that the first userwill share the respective image. The method may still yet furtherinclude determining, based on the likelihoods of the first user sharingthe respective images from the first image cluster, a likelihood of thefirst user sharing the first image cluster. The method may also include,responsive to determining the likelihood of the first user sharing thefirst image cluster exceeds a predetermined threshold, outputting fordisplay, a prompt to the first user to share the first image cluster onthe social media network.

According to another example implementation, a computer program productis provided. The computer program product may include a non-transitorycomputer readable medium. The computer readable medium may storeinstructions that, when executed by at least one processor in a system,cause the processor to perform a method substantially similar to themethods described hereinabove.

According to yet another example implementation, a system is provided.The system may include an image capture device coupled to a computingdevice, and a memory operatively coupled to the computing device andconfigured for storing data and instructions that may be executed by theprocessor. When executed, the system may be caused to perform a methodsubstantially similar to the methods described hereinabove.

Other implementations, features, and aspects of the disclosed technologyare described in detail herein and are considered a part of the claimeddisclosed technology. Other implementations, features, and aspects canbe understood with reference to the following detailed description,accompanying drawings, and claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The patent or application file contains at least one drawing executed incolor. Copies of this patent or patent application publication withcolor drawings(s) will be provided by the Office upon request andpayment of the necessary fee.

Reference will now be made to the accompanying figures and flowdiagrams, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts a block diagram of illustrative computing devicearchitecture 100, according to an example implementation.

FIG. 2 depicts an illustration of PCA analysis 200 of a set of samples,according to an example implementation.

FIG. 3 depicts an illustration of a plot 300 of relative featureimportance, according to an example implementation.

FIG. 4 depicts an illustration of a cross-validation evaluation 400,according to an example implementation.

FIG. 5 depicts an illustration of user interface 500 for labelingphotos, according to an example implementation.

FIG. 6 depicts an illustration of PCA analysis 600 for photos usingthree labels, according to an example implementation.

FIG. 7 depicts an illustration of PCA analysis 700 for photos using twolabels, according to an example implementation.

FIG. 8 depicts an illustration of a plot 800 of a user's photos in threedimensions: time, latitude and longitude, according to an exampleimplementation.

FIG. 9 depicts an illustration of a 7-fold cross-validation 900 for twoclassifiers, according to an example implementation.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of a method 1000 for separating shareableimages from non-shareable images, according to an exampleimplementation.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of another method 1100 for separatingshareable images from non-shareable images, according to an exampleimplementation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Implementations of the disclosed technology include techniques forseparating shareable images from non-shareable images. In variousimplementations, image metadata and feature analysis may be used toevaluate the “shareability” of a photograph associated with a particularuser. In some implementations, single photos may be determined to beshareable. In another implementation, an event associated with multiplephotos may be determined to be shareable. In some implementations, aphoto may be determined to be shareable with a single recipient. Inanother implementation, a photo may be determined to be shareable withmultiple recipients. In yet another implementations, these techniquesmay be assisted by supervised machine learning. In still yet anotherimplementation, photos determined to be shareable may be suggested to auser for sharing, or automatically shared, per an opt-in feature.

Some implementations of the disclosed technology will be described morefully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings. Thedisclosed technology may, however, be embodied in many different formsand should not be construed as limited to the implementations set forthherein. For example, some implementations may be used to evaluate theshareability of video and other media content.

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth.However, it is to be understood that implementations of the disclosedtechnology may be practiced without these specific details. In otherinstances, well-known methods, structures, and techniques have not beenshown in detail in order not to obscure an understanding of thisdescription. References to “one implementation,” “an implementation,”“example implementation,” “some implementations,” “certainimplementations,” “various implementations,” etc., indicate that theimplementation(s) of the disclosed technology so described may include aparticular feature, structure, or characteristic, but not everyimplementation necessarily includes the particular feature, structure,or characteristic. Further, repeated use of the phrase “in oneimplementation” does not necessarily refer to the same implementation,although it may.

Throughout the specification and the claims, the following terms take atleast the meanings explicitly associated herein, unless the contextclearly dictates otherwise. The term “or” is intended to mean aninclusive “or.” Further, the terms “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended tomean one or more unless specified otherwise or clear from the context tobe directed to a singular form.

Unless otherwise specified, the use of the ordinal adjectives “first,”“second,” “third,” etc., to describe a common object, merely indicatethat different instances of like objects are being referred to, and arenot intended to imply that the objects so described must be in a givensequence, either temporally, spatially, in ranking, or in any othermanner.

In some instances, a computing device may be referred to as a mobiledevice, mobile computing device, a mobile station (MS), terminal,cellular phone, cellular handset, personal digital assistant (PDA),smartphone, wireless phone, organizer, handheld computer, desktopcomputer, laptop computer, tablet computer, set-top box, television,appliance, game device, medical device, display device, or some otherlike terminology. In other instances, a computing device may be aprocessor, controller, or a central processing unit (CPU). In yet otherinstances, a computing device may be a set of hardware components.

A presence-sensitive input device as discussed herein, may be a devicethat accepts input by the proximity of a finger, a stylus, or an objectnear the device. A presence-sensitive input device may also be a radioreceiver (for example, a WiFi receiver) and processor which is able toinfer proximity changes via measurements of signal strength, signalfrequency shifts, signal to noise ratio, data error rates, and otherchanges in signal characteristics. A presence-sensitive input device mayalso detect changes in an electric, magnetic, or gravity field.

A presence-sensitive input device may be combined with a display toprovide a presence-sensitive display. For example, a user may provide aninput to a computing device by touching the surface of apresence-sensitive display using a finger. In another exampleimplementation, a user may provide input to a computing device bygesturing without physically touching any object. For example, a gesturemay be received via a video camera or depth camera.

In some instances, a presence-sensitive display may have two mainattributes. First, it may enable a user to interact directly with whatis displayed, rather than indirectly via a pointer controlled by a mouseor touchpad. Secondly, it may allow a user to interact without requiringany intermediate device that would need to be held in the hand. Suchdisplays may be attached to computers, or to networks as terminals. Suchdisplays may also play a prominent role in the design of digitalappliances such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), satellitenavigation devices, mobile phones, and video games. Further, suchdisplays may include a capture device and a display.

Various aspects described herein may be implemented using standardprogramming or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware,hardware, or any combination thereof to control a computing device toimplement the disclosed subject matter. A computer-readable medium mayinclude, for example: a magnetic storage device such as a hard disk, afloppy disk or a magnetic strip; an optical storage device such as acompact disk (CD) or digital versatile disk (DVD); a smart card; and aflash memory device such as a card, stick or key drive, or embeddedcomponent. Additionally, it should be appreciated that a carrier wavemay be employed to carry computer-readable electronic data includingthose used in transmitting and receiving electronic data such aselectronic mail (e-mail) or in accessing a computer network such as theInternet or a local area network (LAN). Of course, a person of ordinaryskill in the art will recognize many modifications may be made to thisconfiguration without departing from the scope or spirit of the claimedsubject matter.

Various systems, methods, and computer-readable mediums may be utilizedfor separating shareable images from non-shareable images, and will nowbe described with reference to the accompanying figures.

FIG. 1 depicts a block diagram of illustrative computing devicearchitecture 100, according to an example implementation. Certainaspects of FIG. 1 may be embodied in a computing device 200 (forexample, a mobile computing device). As desired, embodiments of thedisclosed technology may include a computing device with more or less ofthe components illustrated in FIG. 1. It will be understood that thecomputing device architecture 100 is provided for example purposes onlyand does not limit the scope of the various embodiments of the presentdisclosed systems, methods, and computer-readable mediums.

The computing device architecture 100 of FIG. 1 includes a CPU 102,where computer instructions are processed; a display interface 106 thatacts as a communication interface and provides functions for renderingvideo, graphics, images, and texts on the display. According to certainsome embodiments of the disclosed technology, the display interface 106may be directly connected to a local display, such as a touch-screendisplay associated with a mobile computing device. In another exampleembodiment, the display interface 106 may be configured for providingdata, images, and other information for an external/remote display thatis not necessarily physically connected to the mobile computing device.For example, a desktop monitor may be utilized for mirroring graphicsand other information that is presented on a mobile computing device.According to certain some embodiments, the display interface 106 maywirelessly communicate, for example, via a Wi-Fi channel or otheravailable network connection interface 112 to the external/remotedisplay.

In an example embodiment, the network connection interface 112 may beconfigured as a communication interface and may provide functions forrendering video, graphics, images, text, other information, or anycombination thereof on the display. In one example, a communicationinterface may include a serial port, a parallel port, a general purposeinput and output (GPIO) port, a game port, a universal serial bus (USB),a micro-USB port, a high definition multimedia (HDMI) port, a videoport, an audio port, a Bluetooth port, a near-field communication (NFC)port, another like communication interface, or any combination thereof.

The computing device architecture 100 may include a keyboard interface104 that provides a communication interface to a keyboard. In oneexample embodiment, the computing device architecture 100 may include apresence-sensitive display interface 107 for connecting to apresence-sensitive display. According to certain some embodiments of thedisclosed technology, the presence-sensitive display interface 107 mayprovide a communication interface to various devices such as a pointingdevice, a touch screen, a depth camera, etc. which may or may not beassociated with a display.

The computing device architecture 100 may be configured to use an inputdevice via one or more of input/output interfaces (for example, thekeyboard interface 104, the display interface 106, the presencesensitive display interface 107, network connection interface 112,camera interface 114, sound interface 116, etc.) to allow a user tocapture information into the computing device architecture 100. Theinput device may include a mouse, a trackball, a directional pad, atrack pad, a touch-verified track pad, a presence-sensitive track pad, apresence-sensitive display, a scroll wheel, a digital camera, a digitalvideo camera, a web camera, a microphone, a sensor, a smartcard, and thelike. Additionally, the input device may be integrated with thecomputing device architecture 100 or may be a separate device. Forexample, the input device may be an accelerometer, a magnetometer, adigital camera, a microphone, and an optical sensor.

Example embodiments of the computing device architecture 100 may includean antenna interface 110 that provides a communication interface to anantenna; a network connection interface 112 that provides acommunication interface to a network. According to certain embodiments,a camera interface 114 is provided that acts as a communicationinterface and provides functions for capturing digital images from acamera. According to certain embodiments, a sound interface 116 isprovided as a communication interface for converting sound intoelectrical signals using a microphone and for converting electricalsignals into sound using a speaker. According to example embodiments, arandom access memory (RAM) 118 is provided, where computer instructionsand data may be stored in a volatile memory device for processing by theCPU 102.

According to an example embodiment, the computing device architecture100 includes a read-only memory (ROM) 120 where invariant low-levelsystem code or data for basic system functions such as basic input andoutput (I/O), startup, or reception of keystrokes from a keyboard arestored in a non-volatile memory device. According to an exampleembodiment, the computing device architecture 100 includes a storagemedium 122 or other suitable type of memory (e.g., RAM, ROM,programmable read-only memory (PROM), erasable programmable read-onlymemory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory(EEPROM), magnetic disks, optical disks, floppy disks, hard disks,removable cartridges, flash drives), where the files include anoperating system 124, application programs 126 (including, for example,a web browser application, a widget or gadget engine, and or otherapplications, as necessary) and data files 128 are stored. According toan example embodiment, the computing device architecture 100 includes apower source 130 that provides an appropriate alternating current (AC)or direct current (DC) to power components. According to an exampleembodiment, the computing device architecture 100 includes a telephonysubsystem 132 that allows the device 100 to transmit and receive soundover a telephone network. The constituent devices and the CPU 102communicate with each other over a bus 134.

According to an example embodiment, the CPU 102 has appropriatestructure to be a computer processor. In one arrangement, the CPU 102may include more than one processing unit. The RAM 118 interfaces withthe computer bus 134 to provide quick RAM storage to the CPU 102 duringthe execution of software programs such as the operating systemapplication programs, and device drivers. More specifically, the CPU 102loads computer-executable process steps from the storage medium 122 orother media into a field of the RAM 118 in order to execute softwareprograms. Data may be stored in the RAM 118, where the data may beaccessed by the computer CPU 102 during execution. In one exampleconfiguration, the device architecture 100 includes at least 125 MB ofRAM, and 256 MB of flash memory.

The storage medium 122 itself may include a number of physical driveunits, such as a redundant array of independent disks (RAID), a floppydisk drive, a flash memory, a USB flash drive, an external hard diskdrive, thumb drive, pen drive, key drive, a High-Density DigitalVersatile Disc (HD-DVD) optical disc drive, an internal hard disk drive,a Blu-Ray optical disc drive, or a Holographic Digital Data Storage(HDDS) optical disc drive, an external mini-dual in-line memory module(DIMM) synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), or an externalmicro-DIMM SDRAM. Such computer readable storage media allow a computingdevice to access computer-executable process steps, application programsand the like, stored on removable and non-removable memory media, tooff-load data from the device or to upload data onto the device. Acomputer program product, such as one utilizing a communication systemmay be tangibly embodied in storage medium 122, which may comprise amachine-readable storage medium.

According to one example embodiment, the term computing device, as usedherein, may be a CPU, or conceptualized as a CPU (for example, the CPU102 of FIG. 1). In this example embodiment, the computing device may becoupled, connected, and/or in communication with one or more peripheraldevices, such as display. In another example embodiment, the termcomputing device, as used herein, may refer to a mobile computing device200, such as a smartphone or tablet computer. In this exampleembodiment, the computing device may output content to its local displayand/or speaker(s). In another example embodiment, the computing devicemay output content to an external display device (e.g., over Wi-Fi) suchas a TV or an external computing system.

In some embodiments of the disclosed technology, the computing device200 may include any number of hardware and/or software applications thatare executed to facilitate any of the operations. In some embodiments,one or more I/O interfaces may facilitate communication between thecomputing device and one or more input/output devices. For example, auniversal serial bus port, a serial port, a disk drive, a CD-ROM drive,and/or one or more user interface devices, such as a display, keyboard,keypad, mouse, control panel, touch screen display, microphone, etc.,may facilitate user interaction with the computing device. The one ormore I/O interfaces may be utilized to receive or collect data and/oruser instructions from a wide variety of input devices. Received datamay be processed by one or more computer processors as desired invarious embodiments of the disclosed technology and/or stored in one ormore memory devices.

One or more network interfaces may facilitate connection of thecomputing device inputs and outputs to one or more suitable networksand/or connections; for example, the connections that facilitatecommunication with any number of sensors associated with the system. Theone or more network interfaces may further facilitate connection to oneor more suitable networks; for example, a local area network, a widearea network, the Internet, a cellular network, a radio frequencynetwork, a Bluetooth enabled network, a Wi-Fi enabled network, asatellite-based network any wired network, any wireless network, etc.,for communication with external devices and/or systems.

Certain implementations of the disclosed technology include techniquesfor separating shareable images from non-shareable images. In someimplementations, a photo may be determined as shareable based onmetadata and other attributes of a photo—for example, attributes such asgeolocation (e.g., latitude, longitude), and timestamp (at what time thephoto was taken). Other information, such as how many or which of theuser's friends were present and/or also taking photos may also be usedto determine whether and to which users the photo may be shared.

By utilizing more of the information available, an improved smart photosuggestion mechanism may be created. However, manually choosing variousconditions and accompanying thresholds to consider can become unwieldyas the amount of available information increases. Instead, a moregeneral solution may be needed. Accordingly, some implementations mayleverage machine learning to model the shareability of a given photo ora group of photos. To avoid red herrings and identify non-obviousindicators, various pieces of information, or “features” were suggestedand accounted for in an example generalized model. Throughexperimentation, the validity of certain features as indicators wasconfirmed in the tests described herein.

According to certain implementations, photos transferred to a user orcomputer may be marked as “shared” photos. All photos that have not beenshared may be considered “unshared” photos. With historical labels likethese for a large amount of users and their photos, it may be possibleto infer a pattern between a newly taken photo and its label. Thefollowing example demonstrates a technique for determining ashareability of an individual photo.

In the following example, historical shares were obtained for manyusers, meaning that a share or non-share label has been associated witheach photo. For each individual photo, there was a base amount of dataavailable regarding that photo. First, each photo itself had associatedmetadata. This metadata contained items such as GPS coordinates and thetime the photo was taken (e.g., in Unix time). Secondly, each photo wastraceable to the user who owned the photo, so given a first photo, therest of that user's photos could be identified.

For the following example, users with a certain version of the iOSclient were chosen. From this set, a random subset of users wasselected. The size of this subset was chosen such that N>100,000, whereN is the number of users. For each user, only photos taken between 28Mar. 2013 and 2 May 2013 were considered, as historical sharing data wasnot available, or unreliable, before this date.

It is worth noting that the labels described herein, i.e., thehistorical sharing data, may not accurately represent whether a phototruly is shareable or not. Since these labels come from actions userstake in the example app, it may be wrong to assume that a photo is notshareable if the user has not shared it through the app. For example,maybe the user will share the photo in the future, or maybe the user hasshared the photo through other unknown or undetectable means. It is alsopossible that users (in general) may share fewer photos than they mightwant to, due to reasons like a lack of an unobtrusive photo sharingapplication. To summarize, the labels are binary, either shared or nonshared. In the shared case it may be certain that the photo truly is ashareable photo since the user has explicitly taken the action to shareit. In the non-shared case however, it may not be certain that the photois not shareable. However, the richness and scale of the data setavailable was still interesting enough for this analysis to be carriedout as a binary classification problem.

In this example, a limited number of information items were availablefor each photo, e.g., a time the photo was taken, and a location.However, more features can be derived from these items. For example,given the location for and Unix time a photo was taken, thecorresponding day of the week may be determined. The day of the week ispotential signal of importance for determining whether a photo should beshared, compared to baldly considering at the number of seconds sinceJan. 1, 1970. In a similar fashion, various other features wereextracted from available data points. This process will be referred toherein as “feature engineering.”

The feature engineering process requires specific insight or at leasttheories of what makes a photo more or less likely to be shared. Theprocess used in these examples was an iterative process with thefollowing workflow:

-   -   1. Form hypothesis of what makes a photo more shareable, e.g.,        “a photo that is taken on a weekend is more likely to be        shared.”    -   2. Formalize the hypothesis into something measurable e.g. “Day        of week.” This is referred to as a “feature.”    -   3. Read this feature out from the metadata associated with the        photo. If it is not possible to form this feature from the        metadata, the feature may be dropped and the process restarted        from Step 1.    -   4. Add this new feature to the model and evaluate the result.    -   5. Start over from Step 1 until the result is satisfactory.

For this example, the set of features shown in Table 1 were engineered.

TABLE 1 Engineered Features Feature name Feature Type Explanation Athome Binary Indicating whether this photo was taken at home. At workBinary Indicating whether this photo was taken at work. Average timebetween Scalar Described later herein. photos in cluster # FriendsScalar The number of friends this user has. More friends may indicate ahigher usage level of the app, and to some degree affect the number ofpictures that are shared. Day of week Categorical The day of week thisphoto was taken. This feature may be split into seven distinct featuresas described later herein. Distance to home Scalar Distance from wherethis photo was taken to home. Distance to work Scalar Distance fromwhere this photo was taken to work. First time visiting this BinaryWhether this photo is the first photo taken at this place location. If auser is visiting a new place for the first time, this might indicate thephotos are more likely to be shared. Median time between ScalarDescribed later herein. photos in cluster Near collocations ScalarNumber of collocation events within a predetermined time, (e.g., 1.5hours) of this photo. Number of collocated Scalar Number of collocatedfriends associated with this friends photo. Number of faces ScalarNumber of faces detected in this picture. If there are many faces in aphoto, this might the photo is more likely to be shared. Own photosnearby Scalar Existence of other photos taken by the user at or near asame location. A recurring photo location might indicate home, work, oranother commonly visited location. Photo's day activity Binary Describedlater herein. above average Photo's day activity Binary Described laterherein. above median Photo's day activity Scalar Described later herein.percentile Photo's day activity Scalar Described later herein. rankPhoto's day activity σ Scalar Described later herein. Photos sharedfraction Scalar Fraction of photos this user has ever shared. Size ofcluster Scalar Size of the cluster this photo belongs to. Time afterprevious Scalar Time between the last photo taken and this photo. photoA short interval may indicate the user is taking photos rapidly, andmight indicate the photos are more likely to be shared. Time clusterspans Scalar The total time this photo cluster spans. Time of day ScalarThe time of day in local time this photo was taken. A photo taken in theevening, for example, might be more likely to be shared compared to aphoto taken in the morning. Time until next photo Scalar Similar to Timeafter previous photo but instead specifies the time between this photoand a next photo.

Temporal clustering of photographs: Each photo had a UNIX timestampassociated with it. If the timestamps were extracted from each photo,and put in ascending sorted order, a list l of n timestamps may beformed, where n is the number of photos:

l=[t₁, t₂, . . . , t_(n)]

A clustering of the photos may be performed by splitting the list wherethe difference in time between two consecutive photos exceeds a certaincutoff C forming clusters y:

y=[[t ₁ , t ₂ , . . . , t _(m) ], [t _(m+1) , t _(m+2) , . . . , t_(m+k)], . . . ]

where:

t_(m+1)−t_(m)>C

It was not obvious which value of C would work best, or indeed if anysingle value would be adeqaute, so multiple values were used for C andall features directly related to the temporal clustering were computedonce per value of C. C assumed values 15, 30, 60, 120, 240 (minutes).

Two features that were directly related to temporal clustering are Sizeof cluster and Time cluster spans. They were therefore split into fivefeatures each, one for each value of C. This was also repeated for thefeatures Average time between photos in cluster and Median time betweenphotos in cluster.

Collocations: When two users that are friends take photos while beingspatially and temporally near each other, they may generate somethingcalled collocation events. These collocation events may be stored andused as an indication of whether a photo is more likely to be shared. Anunderlying theory is that if a user takes a photo near someone that istheir friend, they are more likely to share that photo since one oftheir friends was nearby. The lack of a collocation event associatedwith a photo does not necessarily indicate that no friends were nearby,just that no friends that could be detected were nearby.

Photo activity: Pictures may be taken with varying rates and this ratecould possibly be a signal identifying the shareability of the photo.For example, some days only a few photos may be taken, other days manyphotos may be taken. This behavior may be potentially veryindividual—some people might take far fewer photos than other people,and a “busy” day for one person is not necessarily a busy day foranother person. Comparing activity levels on a per-day basis may allowusing relative measures such as “This day was a more active day comparedto the other days.”

A given day's activity level was assessed as the number of photos theuser took that day. All activity levels were calculated, and each photowas then attributed with information related to the activity level ofthe day it was taken. The features are described in Table 2.

TABLE 2 Features extracted from the photo activity levels Photo's day

 ⁺ The relative position of this day's activity rank activity level dcompared to the other days. Photo's day 0, 1 If this day's activitylevel d is activity above average above average, this attribute is True(1), otherwise False (0). Photo's day 0, 1 If this day's activity leveld is above activity above median the median, this attribute is True (1),otherwise False (0). Photo's day [0, 100] The percentile of this day'sactivity activity percentile level d. Photo's day

The standard deviation of all days' activity σ activity level d.

FIG. 2 depicts an illustration of PCA analysis 200 of a set of samples,according to an example implementation. For each sample, values of thetwo principal components that have the highest variance were plotted.Each sample was also annotated with its label. The overlap of classeshere is clear—it may not be possible to cleanly separate this data inthese two dimensions. While higher dimensionality may be used toseparate the classes, this figure shows that it may not be trivial toseparate the classes. The PCA analysis was generated by first reducingthe samples to 100,000 randomly selected samples of the imbalanceddataset. Each column in the sample matrix was then scaled so that it hadzero mean and unit variance. The scaling of the feature columns may benecessary because PCA is sensitive to the relative scaling of featurecolumns.

Once features were generated for each photo, the samples were processedbefore they were used as training data for the model. The classdistribution is shown in Table 3. As evident from Table 3, the classeswere imbalanced, and around 4% of examined photos had a positive label.

TABLE 3 Class distribution of the training samples Number of samplesPercentage Shared (positive) 80,017  4% Not shared (negative) 1,896,11996% Total 1,976,136 100% 

In this example, the classes were manually balanced by undersampling thesample array. Samples from the larger class were randomly removed untilthe classes were identical in size. This undersampling was alsoadvantageous in time spent training the model, as the number of sampleswas greatly reduced, thus significantly reducing the time required fortraining. An alternative to undersampling the data is oversampling,i.e., creating more samples from the minor classes. This technique wasunnecessary in this example, as there was no lack of data in anycategory.

The limit of 250,000 users was chosen as a tradeoff between performanceand training time. In further testing, using more than 250,000 usersgave a slight increase in the performance of the model with asignificantly increased cost of training.

The number of samples in each class after the dataset was balanced isshown in Table 4.

TABLE 4 Class distribution in each fold Fold Positive samples Negativesamples Percentage of all samples 1 6962 (47%) 7814 (53%) 9.2% 2 7105(48%) 7603 (52%) 9.2% 3 8528 (51%) 8042 (49%) 10.4% 4 7893 (49%) 8298(51%) 10.1% 5 8797 (52%) 8219 (48%) 10.6% 6 8486 (51%) 8130 (49%) 10.4%7 8557 (52%) 7995 (48%) 10.3% 8 8201 (51%) 8008 (49%) 10.1% 9 8447 (51%)8014 (49%) 10.3% 10 7041 (47%) 7894 (53%) 9.3%

To validate the performance of the model, cross-validation was used.However, special care was required in the cross-validation due to thenature of the samples. All the samples were stored in a list s:

s=[s₁, s₂, . . . , s_(n)]

However, since the samples were sourced from specific users—and oneuser's sharing preferences might vary wildy from any other user—thesamples may not be independent. Samples from a single user are dependenton each other. In the sample array, samples from one user appear incontiguous sequence like shown below.

s=[s₁, s₁₂, . . . , s_(i) _(i) , s₂ ₁ , s₂ ₂ , . . . , s₂ _(j) , s_(n) ₁, s_(n) ₂ , . . . , s_(n) _(k) ,]

This was taken into account when doing cross-validation. If samples usedfor training are dependent on samples used for testing, this couldaffect the perceived performance of the model since the model likelywill be better at predicting samples that are very similar to ones ithas seen before. Furthermore, a model that generalizes to new users wasdesired in this example and not a model that requires training data toexist for a particular user. As such, care was taken when doing theten-fold cross-validation to make sure users' samples end up indifferent folds while still preserving the class distribution in eachfold.

This was achieved by creating k empty buckets (or folds), and, for eachuser, placing all of that user's samples into one of the buckets. Whichbucket to put the user's samples was chosen at random, in a uniformmanner. Thus, each of the k buckets contained samples from multipleusers, and all the buckets added together contains the whole dataset.One potential issue with distributing the samples in a random fashion isthat the class distribution in each fold may be very different from theclass distribution in the samples as a whole. Training on data with adifferent class distribution than the testing data could potentiallygive misleading results. However, the class distribution in each foldwere observed to be similar to the entire (balanced) dataset, as shownin Table 5.

When running the cross-validation, one of the k folds was held out astesting data while the remaining k-1 folds were used as training data.This was repeated k times until all folds had been used as testing dataonce.

FIG. 3 depicts an illustration of a plot 300 of relative featureimportance, according to an example implementation. In this example, allof the features described above were used in the final model. Thefeatures were computed once per parameter configuration (like thedifferent values for C as mentioned above, for example), thus 172features were used as input in the model. When inspecting the featureimportances that the Random Forest classifier outputs, it became clearthat some features were much more discriminating. It was experimentallydetermined in this example that the most discriminative features were:(1) whether the photo contains faces, (2) how many friends a user has,and (3) the size of the cluster as formed by the temporal clustering.

FIG. 4 depicts an illustration of a cross-validation evaluation 400,according to an example implementation. Since the evaluation was done bycross-validation, any folds with characteristics that are different fromthe whole dataset may be reflected in the per-fold scores. In FIG. 4, itis apparent that the folds are not significantly different as thevariation in scores per cross-validation fold is small.

For each cross-validation fold, a confusion matrix was generated. Thesewere summed by matrix addition, and in Table 5, the sum of confusionmatrices is shown. While the model had a positive result, i.e., itpredicted more right than wrong, it also may have mispredicted somesamples. With an average accuracy of 67% and average Matthewscorrelation coefficient of 0.34, the example model was not perfect.However, this accuracy figure might be misleading. Since the datasetused for training and testing was completely balanced, even a classifierthat always predicted no share would get an accuracy of 50%. Theaccuracy this model achieved could therefore be seen as a 67/50=34%improvement over the base accuracy.

TABLE 5 Sum of confusion matrices from each cross-validation fold Actualnegative Actual positive Predicted negative 60,314 19,703 Predictedpositive 33,978 46,039

The MCC and accuracy of this classifier may be compared to that of usinga Naive Bayes classifier instead, as shown in Table 6. The performanceof using a Naive Bayes classifier is clearly inferior to that performedby the Random Forest classifier. The Naive Bayes assumption ofindependence seems to be incorrect in this case, and that classifierdoes not capture all of the signal in the data.

TABLE 6 Average MCC and accuracy using Random Forest Naive Bayes AverageMCC Average accuracy Random forest 0.34 67% Naive Bayes 0.09 53%

The previous example was directed to determining a shareability ofindividual image. According to certain implementations, shareability maybe determined for a group of images. The following example describestest results for a technique for determining a shareability of groups ofphotos, referred to herein as “events.” Moreover, in addition toproviding a “yes” or “no” determination, the example algorithm mayprovide a ranking of events by shareability.

For this example, the data available consisted of manually labeledphotos from twenty-two users. An application for Apple's iOS platformwas created for facilitating easy labeling of user photos. It wasassumed that the participating users used their iOS device as their maindevice to take photographs. They were also expected to label asignificant portion of their photos, starting with the most recentphotos and going back in time. For each photo viewed, a user had fouroptions: (1) I would share this photo with one person, (2) I would sharethis photo with more than one person, (3) I would not share this photo,and (4) Do not include this photo in the study. The last option wasavailable to users so that they could exclude photos they felt were tooprivate or photos they did not want analysts to see.

For each photo a user labeled, several pieces of information werestored. A thumbnail of each photo was available, and depending on theorientation of the original photo it had a resolution of 90×120 pixelsor 120×90 pixels. Metadata associated with the photos, called EXIF data,was stored for every labeled photo. This data included, among otheritems, information such as GPS coordinates, the date the photo was takenand the exposure time. GPS coordinates were provided for images wherethe device successfully acquired a location during the time of thephotograph, however, this information was only available for the userswho enabled this data to be shared.

More than 10,000 photos were labeled, according to the distributionsshown in Table 7.

TABLE 7 Label distributions Label Count No share 6,773 (42.0%) Sharewith one 2,317 (14.4%) Share with many 7,035 (43.6%) Total 16,125

With contributions in labels from only twenty-two users, a certain biasin the data may not be surprising. As seen in FIG. 6, some users labeledsignificantly more photos than other users.

FIG. 5 depicts an illustration of user interface 500 for labelingphotos, according to an example implementation. As shown in FIG. 5, theUI was designed to allow people to label a large amount of photos in asmall amount of time. Each photo was assigned one of the three labels.When plotting the PCA analysis for the photo samples and their features,it became apparent that it would be difficult to separate the labelsShared with one and Shared with many with any confidence. FIG. 6 depictsan illustration of PCA analysis 600 for photos using three labels,according to an example implementation. However when the two labelsShared with one and Shared with many instead were treated as a singlelabel shareable, a PCA analysis as seen in FIG. 7 resulted.

For the example planned use case, it was deemed sufficiently unimportantto be able to distinguish between photos that should be shared with oneperson and photos that should be shared with multiple persons, at leastwhen the confidence was very low. Instead it was decided to treat thetwo labels where a photo was shared as a single label shareable, makingthis into a binary classification problem.

Since labels were only available for individual photos, labels for theevents had to be created. An event may comprise several photos, and abaseline may be set for how many shareable photos must be in an eventfor it to be recommended at all. This limit was set to 25%, so an eventgot the label shareable if at least 25% of the photos had been assignedthe label shareable. This resulted in the dataset shown in Table 8.

TABLE 8 Sharing characteristics vary greatly between users Labeled NoShare with Share with Percent User photos share one many shared 1 2282516 186 1580 77.39 2 1587 289 232 1066 81.79 3 1502 887 269 346 40.95 41440 648 37 755 55.0 5 1207 574 478 155 52.44 6 1117 751 104 262 32.77 71044 135 203 706 87.07 8 988 703 164 121 28.85 9 932 247 152 533 73.5 10819 304 152 363 62.88 11 626 287 112 227 54.15 12 526 397 35 94 24.52 13503 349 78 76 30.62 14 459 276 20 163 39.87 15 338 115 28 195 65.98 16209 107 19 83 48.8 17 152 109 21 22 28.29 18 116 42 11 63 63.79 19 89 17 81 98.88 20 88 36 6 46 59.09 21 60 0 3 57 100.0 22 41 0 0 41 100.0

In this example, the model was composed of two separate classifiers. Thefirst classifier estimates sharing probabilities for a single photo. Thesecond classifier estimates sharing probabilities for a whole event,taking aggregate information for an event into account. The twoclassifiers were then combined to make a final decision regarding theimportance, or shareability of an event. For each of the classifiers, aset of features were engineered using the same process as describedhereinabove.

TABLE 9 Class distributions in the user-labeled dataset Photos EventsShareable 5223 (57%) 1501 (56%) Not shareable 3981 (43%) 1168 (44%)Total 9204 2669

Two separate classifiers were used. The features used for the photoclassifier are described in Table 10. The features used for the eventclassifier are described in Table 11.

TABLE 10 Features engineered for photo classifier Feature nameExplanation Day of week The day of week the photo was taken. Density Thephoto density where this photo was taken. Exposure time The exposuretime used by the camera for this photo. Face count The number of facesfound in this picture. File size The file size of the image. Certaintypes of images compress to a smaller file size, and as such the filesize could be indicative of what the photograph contains. Flash What (ifany) flash setting was used for this photograph. F-Stop The F-stop usedfor this photograph. ISO The ISO used for this photograph. ISO isindicative of how bright the scene was where the photo was taken. HighISO is correlated with less light. Local time The local time of day whenthe photo was taken. Orientation The orientation of the phone asspecified by the EXIF data. Screenshot If this photo is a screenshot,this is true.

TABLE 11 Features engineered for event classifier Feature nameExplanation Cluster rank The rank of the cluster at which this event waslocated. Duration The duration of the event, e.g. the difference in timebetween first and last photograph. Dwell time Percentage of total dwelltime spent at the percentage location this event was located. End timeThe local time when the last photo in this event was taken. Percentageof photos Percentage of photos in this event that have one with faces ormore faces in them. Is weekend Whether this event occurred during aweekend. Maximal base distance Described later herein. Minimal basedistance Described later herein. Size The number of photos in the event.Start time The local time when the first photo in this event was taken.Total dwell time Total dwell time spent at the location this event waslocated. Total faces The total number of faces detected in the photos inthis event. Trip type The trip type for this event. Days of week Thedays this event spans. Unique days Number of unique days spent at thelocation this at location event was located. Unique weeks Number ofunique weeks spent at the location this at location event was located.

Photo Density: Since data was available for multiple users with theircorresponding photos having location information, it was possible tobuild a density map of photographs taken. This map captured informationabout what locations are popular spots to take photographs in. Intheory, the density at a popular location may be higher, and this maycorrelate with whether a photo is going to be shared or not. However,this correlation may not necessarily be linear. For example, low densityand high density might be more favourable for sharing, while mediumdensity might not signal as strongly.

A density map was computed using millions of points. The density map wasthen queried for one question: how many points exists near thislatitude, longitude? This is the source of the density feature for thephoto classifier. In this example, the threshold for “being near” wasset to 100 meters.

Trip Detection: Since photo history over a longer period of time wasavailable for each user, it was possible to list or determine whatlocations are most frequently visited by the user. For example, the usermight take photos in their home or at their work with a frequency orregularity that is discernible from spontaneous outings such as lunches,parties or other short events. Being able to tell where a photo wastaken in relation to a user's home or work may be correlated with theshareability of said photo. For example, if the user is on vacation,thousands of miles away, they might be more likely to share their photoscompared with photos that were taken in their home.

FIG. 8 depicts an illustration of a plot 800 of a user's photos in threedimensions: time, latitude and longitude, according to an exampleimplementation. These photos were taken over a three-year period. InFIG. 8, it is evident that there is a significant clustering of pointsin the spatial dimension, while the temporal dimension has morevariation. Two major “trails” may be seen in FIG. 8. These are centeredat the user's home and work location.

To compute features related to where the photograph was taken relativeto a user's home and/or work, a home and work detection algorithm wascreated. The input may be a user's events, and output may be a set ofattributes for each event. The attributes may indicate if the event wasduring a trip, or other information items. The example algorithm may besummarized as follows:

-   -   1. Create clusters using agglomerative hierarchical clustering.    -   2. For each cluster, compute:        -   Total dwell time at this location. This may be done by            creating events for all photos in the cluster, and summing            their duration.        -   Total dwell time fraction, as a measure of how much time had            been spent at each cluster relative to the other clusters.        -   Unique weeks and days that photos in cluster.    -   3. Compute cluster rank r as a linear combination of number of        unique days, weeks and dwell time fraction. For example,

 r = 2.0 * dwell_time_fraction + 5.0 * number_of_unique_weeks + 1.0 * number_of_unique_days

-   -   4. The two highest ranking clusters are set as base_locations    -   5. Process events and associate them with the cluster        information of the cluster they are located at. There is always        a cluster for an event. The items assigned to each event are:        -   total_dwell_time—Accumulated time spent at this cluster            location.        -   dwell_time_fraction—Amount of time spent at this cluster            location relative to total dwell time.        -   unique_weeks—Number of unique weeks at this cluster            location.        -   unique_days—Number of unique weeks at this cluster location.        -   cluster_rank—The rank of the cluster.        -   min_base_distance—Minimal distance from this event to any of            the base locations.        -   max_base_distance—Maximal distance from this event to any of            the base locations.

In this example, the algorithm used agglomerative hierarchicalclustering to form groups of photographs that are spatially near eachother.

For testing data, the dataset described earlier was used, however, onlyeight of the twenty-two users had confirmed home and work locationsavailable. These users were used to test the final performance of thetrip detection algorithm. For each user, their home and work locationwas known. The trip detection algorithm ranked the clusters, and the twohighest ranking clusters set as baselocations. These baselocations were,in best case, the user's home and the user;s work, in any order.However, Table 12 shows how the algorithm actually ranked the home andwork locations for the eight users. For one user, it found the user'shome location as the highest ranked cluster, and the user's worklocation as the next highest ranked cluster. For six out of eight usersit found their home location as one of the base locations. For five outof eight users it found their work location as one of the baselocations.

TABLE 12 The trip detection algorithm detected home and work as baselocations for five out of eight users User Found home at index Foundwork at index 1 0 1 2 0 1 3 3 8 4 0 1 5 10 11 6 0 1 7 0 1 8 1 47

The rank of each event was given by a combination of the classificationprobability for the photos in the event and the classificationprobability of the event itself. To perform the actual ranking of theevents the following was defined: An event e contains photos p₁, p₂, . .. , p_(n). The probability that a photo is shared, as given by the photoclassifier, was defined by photo_prob(x). The recency of an event was areal number in the range [0, 1] where the most recent event hasrecency=1 and the oldest event has recency=0. The event shareprobability was defined by event_prob(c). As shown, the rank wascomputed as a linear combination of several attributes. This linearcombination of factors was developed by using input from users.

event_rank(e) = 1.0 * event_prob(e) + 1.0 * recency + 0.5 * mean(photo_prob(p₁), photo_prob(p₂), …  , photo_prob(p_(n))) + 0.25 * median(photo_prob(p₁), photo_prob(p₂), …  , photo_prob(p_(n)))

Evaluating the whole model on a large scale may be difficult as itrequires users to rank their events. The requisite data was notavailable and not possible to produce. However, the two classifier'sperformance may still be evaluated since there was a large amount oflabeled data. A seven-fold cross-validation was performed for bothclassifiers, and their scores on the test fold were recorded for eachfold. In FIG. 9, the accuracy and Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC)scores achieved per fold are shown. While there is variation in thedata, the scores appear fairly consistent. A positive MCC score of 0.3and 0.31 (see Table 13) indicates the classifiers are correlated withthe labels. For comparison, the scores for a Naive Bayes classifier areshown in Table 14. As evident from the scores, the Naive Bayesclassifier does a noticeably worse job at classifying the samples. Thisis not unexpected given the independence assumption in Naive Bayesclassifiers.

TABLE 13 Average scores for photo and event classifier Photo classifierEvent classifier Average MCC 0.30 0.31 Average accuracy 66% 66%

TABLE 14 Average scores for Naive Bayes classifier Photo classifierEvent classifier Average MCC 0.17 0.19 Average accuracy 61% 57%

One user for whom additional data was available, was asked to comment onthe output of the example model. The ten best events according to themodel were selected and presented to this user. Out of these ten events,seven were considered to be shareable events. The user remarked that theevents selected were approximately correctly ranked in recency andimportance, save for the three events that were non shareable.

As evidenced by the above examples, it is non-trivial to predict whethera photograph is going to be shared. Even when utilizing many featuresand extrapolating from the available data, the example models stillturned in a moderate performance. This may be unsurprising as predictinghuman behavior can be a complicated and nuanced task.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram of a method 1000 for separating shareableimages from non-shareable images, according to an exampleimplementation.. As shown in FIG. 10, the method 1000 starts in block1002, and, according to an example implementation, includes receiving,by a computing device, a plurality of images associated with a firstuser of a social media network, each respective image having atimestamp. In block 1004, the method 1000 includes defining, by thecomputing device, a grouping of the plurality of images into a pluralityof image clusters, wherein a first image cluster of the plurality ofimage clusters comprises (1) an initial image from the plurality ofimages and (2) one or more other images from the plurality of imageshaving a timestamp within a predetermined amount of time of at least oneof a timestamp associated with the initial image and a timestampassociated with one of the other images in the first image cluster. Inblock 1006, the method 1000 includes determining, by the computingdevice, based at least partially on a number of images in the firstimage cluster, a likelihood that the first user will share a first imagein the first cluster. In block 1008, the method 1000 includes responsiveto determining the likelihood exceeds a predetermined threshold,outputting, by the computing device, for display, a prompt to the firstuser to share the first image on the social media network.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram of another method 1100 for separatingshareable images from non-shareable images, according to an exampleimplementation. As shown in FIG. 11, the method 1100 starts in block1102, and, according to an example implementation, includes receiving,by a computing device, a plurality of images associated with a firstuser of a social media network, each respective image having atimestamp. In block 1104, the method 1100 includes defining, by thecomputing device, a grouping of the plurality of images into a pluralityof image clusters, wherein a first image cluster of the plurality ofimage clusters comprises (1) an initial image from the plurality ofimages and (2) one or more other images from the plurality of imageshaving a timestamp within a predetermined amount of time of at least oneof a timestamp associated with the initial image and a timestampassociated with one of the other images in the first image cluster.

In block 1106, the method 1100 includes determining, by the computingdevice, for each respective image in a first image cluster of theplurality of image clusters, a likelihood that the first user will sharethe respective image. In block 1108, the method 1100 includesdetermining, by the computing device, based on the likelihoods of thefirst user sharing the respective images from the first image cluster, alikelihood of the first user sharing the first image cluster. In block1110, the method 1100 includes determining, by the computing device,based on the likelihoods of the first user sharing the respective imagesfrom the first image cluster, a likelihood of the first user sharing thefirst image cluster. In block 1112, the method 1100 includes responsiveto determining the likelihood of the first user sharing the first imagecluster exceeds a predetermined threshold, outputting, by the computingdevice, for display, a prompt to the first user to share the first imagecluster on the social media network.

It will be understood that the various steps shown in FIGS. 10-11 areillustrative only, and that steps may be removed, other steps may beused, or the order of steps may be modified.

Certain implementations of the disclosed technology are described abovewith reference to block and flow diagrams of systems and methods and/orcomputer program products according to example implementations of thedisclosed technology. It will be understood that one or more blocks ofthe block diagrams and flow diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theblock diagrams and flow diagrams, respectively, may be implemented bycomputer-executable program instructions. Likewise, some blocks of theblock diagrams and flow diagrams may not necessarily need to beperformed in the order presented, or may not necessarily need to beperformed at all, according to some implementations of the disclosedtechnology.

These computer-executable program instructions may be loaded onto ageneral-purpose computer, a special-purpose computer, a processor, orother programmable data processing apparatus to produce a particularmachine, such that the instructions that execute on the computer,processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus create meansfor implementing one or more functions specified in the flow diagramblock or blocks. These computer program instructions may also be storedin a computer-readable memory that may direct a computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meansthat implement one or more functions specified in the flow diagram blockor blocks. As an example, implementations of the disclosed technologymay provide for a computer program product, comprising a computer-usablemedium having a computer-readable program code or program instructionsembodied therein, said computer-readable program code adapted to beexecuted to implement one or more functions specified in the flowdiagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also beloaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatusto cause a series of operational elements or steps to be performed onthe computer or other programmable apparatus to produce acomputer-implemented process such that the instructions that execute onthe computer or other programmable apparatus provide elements or stepsfor implementing the functions specified in the flow diagram block orblocks.

Accordingly, blocks of the block diagrams and flow diagrams supportcombinations of means for performing the specified functions,combinations of elements or steps for performing the specified functionsand program instruction means for performing the specified functions. Itwill also be understood that each block of the block diagrams and flowdiagrams, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and flowdiagrams, may be implemented by special-purpose, hardware-based computersystems that perform the specified functions, elements or steps, orcombinations of special-purpose hardware and computer instructions.

While certain implementations of the disclosed technology have beendescribed in connection with what is presently considered to be the mostpractical and various implementations, it is to be understood that thedisclosed technology is not to be limited to the disclosedimplementations, but on the contrary, is intended to cover variousmodifications and equivalent arrangements included within the scope ofthe appended claims. Although specific terms are employed herein, theyare used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes oflimitation.

This written description uses examples to disclose certainimplementations of the disclosed technology, including the best mode,and also to enable any person skilled in the art to practice certainimplementations of the disclosed technology, including making and usingany devices or systems and performing any incorporated methods. Thepatentable scope of certain implementations of the disclosed technologyis defined in the claims, and may include other examples that occur tothose skilled in the art. Such other examples are intended to be withinthe scope of the claims if they have structural elements that do notdiffer from the literal language of the claims, or if they includeequivalent structural elements with insubstantial differences from theliteral language of the claims.

We claim:
 1. A method, comprising: receiving, by a computing device, aplurality of images associated with a first user, each respective imagehaving associated metadata that includes a timestamp; defining, by thecomputing device and from the plurality of images, an image cluster,where the image cluster is formed by chronologically ordering theplurality of images based on each image's associated timestamp andselecting a group of chronologically sequential images of the pluralityof images in which the respective timestamp of each consecutive pair ofimages in the group is separated by less than a predetermined amount oftime; determining, by the computing device, and from the respective timestamps associated with a chronologically first image of the imagecluster and a chronologically last image of the image cluster, a totaltime span of the image cluster; determining, by the computing device andbased on the total time span of the image cluster, a likelihood that thefirst user will share a first image of the image cluster; and responsiveto determining the likelihood exceeds a predetermined threshold,outputting, by the computing device, for display, a prompt to the firstuser to share the first image.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thepredetermined time is one of 15, 30, 60, 120, or 240 minutes.
 3. Themethod of claim 1, wherein determining the likelihood that the user willshare the first image is further based on one or more of the averagetime between images in the image cluster or the median time betweenimages in the image cluster.
 4. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining the likelihood that the user will share the first image isfurther based on a number of users of a social media network that areassociated with the first user.
 5. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising detecting faces in the first image, wherein the determiningthe likelihood that the user will share the first image is further basedon a number of detected faces in the first image.
 6. The method of claim1, wherein the predetermined threshold is determined empirically basedon machine learning, wherein a training set for the machine learningincludes additional images associated with the first user.
 7. The methodof claim 1, wherein the predetermined threshold is determinedempirically based on machine learning, wherein a training set for themachine learning excludes images associated with the first user.
 8. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the likelihood that the first user will sharethe first image is a likelihood that the first user will share the firstimage with a single other user.
 9. A non-transitory computer readablestorage medium storing at least one program configured for execution byat least one processor of a computer system including at least oneprocessor, memory and a display, the at least one program comprisesinstructions that when executed cause the computer system to perform amethod comprising: receiving, by a computing device, a plurality ofimages associated with a first user, each respective image havingassociated metadata that includes a timestamp; defining, by thecomputing device and from the plurality of images, an image cluster,where the image cluster is formed by chronologically ordering theplurality of images based on each image's associated timestamp andselecting a group of chronologically sequential images of the pluralityof images in which the respective timestamp of each consecutive pair ofimages in the group is separated by less than a predetermined amount oftime; determining, by the computing device, and from the respective timestamps associated with a chronologically first image of the imagecluster and a chronologically last image of the image cluster, a totaltime span of the image cluster; determining, by the computing device andbased on the total time span of the image cluster, a likelihood that thefirst user will share a first image of the image cluster; and responsiveto determining the likelihood exceeds a predetermined threshold,outputting, by the computing device, for display, a prompt to the firstuser to share the first image.
 10. The non-transitory computer readablestorage medium of claim 9, the predetermined time is one of 15, 30, 60,120, or 240 minutes.
 11. The non-transitory computer readable storagemedium of claim 9, wherein determining the likelihood that the user willshare the first image is further based on one or more of the averagetime between images in the image cluster or the median time betweenimages in the image cluster.
 12. The non-transitory computer readablestorage medium of claim 9, wherein determining the likelihood that theuser will share the first image is further based on a number of users ofa social media network that are associated with the first user.
 13. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein theexecuted method further comprises detecting faces in the first image,wherein the determining the likelihood that the user will share thefirst image is further based on a number of detected faces in the firstimage.
 14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim9, wherein determining the likelihood of the first user sharing thefirst image is based on the date associated with the capture of firstimage.
 15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim14, wherein the date is a particular day of the week or a holiday. 16.The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 9, whereindetermining the likelihood of the first user sharing the first image isbased on a distance from the location at which as the first image wascaptured to one or more of home and work locations associated with theuser.
 17. A system comprising: an image capture device operativelycoupled to a computing device; at least one memory operatively coupledto the computing device and configured for storing data and instructionsthat, when executed by the computing device, cause the computing deviceto perform a method comprising: receiving, by a computing device, aplurality of images associated with a first user, each respective imagehaving associated metadata that includes a timestamp; defining, by thecomputing device and from the plurality of images, an image cluster,where the image cluster is formed by chronologically ordering theplurality of images based on each image's associated timestamp andselecting a group of chronologically sequential images of the pluralityof images in which the respective timestamp of each consecutive pair ofimages in the group is separated by less than a predetermined amount oftime; determining, by the computing device, and from the respective timestamps associated with a chronologically first image of the imagecluster and a chronologically last image of the image cluster, a totaltime span of the image cluster; determining, by the computing device andbased on the total time span of the image cluster, a likelihood that thefirst user will share a first image of the image cluster and responsiveto determining the likelihood exceeds a predetermined threshold,outputting, by the computing device, for display, a prompt to the firstuser to share the first image.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein thepredetermined time is one of 15, 30, 60, 120, or 240 minutes.
 19. Thesystem of claim 17, determining the likelihood that the user will sharethe first image is further based on one or more of the average timebetween images in the image cluster or the median time between images inthe image cluster.
 20. The system of claim 17, wherein determining thelikelihood that the user will share the first image is further based ona number of users of a social media network that are associated with thefirst user.